Wednesday, August 24, 2016

National Labor Relations Board ruled that teaching and research assistants at private institutions of higher education have the right to organize unions by David Moberg

“In a strongly-worded
opinion released Tuesday, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that
teaching and research assistants at Columbia University and at other private
institutions of higher education have the right to organize unions and
collectively bargain with the universities that both employ and teach them.

“The
three Democratic NLRB members wrote that even if students are enrolled in the
university to educate themselves, they also meet the definition of an
employee—working for pay to do what someone else wants them to do. Thus, they
should have the same labor rights as any other employee, the members wrote.
(The lone Republican member dissented; one seat is vacant.)

“The
ruling also emphasized that the aims of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)
were broad—to encourage workers to organize and bargain collectively—and that
the definitions of employer and employee are broad. As a result, the ruling
read, ‘it is appropriate to extend statutory coverage to students working for
universities covered by the Act unless there are strong reasons not to
do so.’

“The
decision is a major victory for graduate student employees and the unions that
want to organize them. Graduate students at some public universities
already have the right to form unions under state law, but the ruling clears
the way for campaigns to move forward at Duke University, Northwestern
University, American University and other private institutions.

“Shortly
after news of the NLRB decision broke, the Service Employees International
Union released a statement that cheered the ruling. ‘SEIU members in every
industry are coming together to ensure that our broken higher education system
will not derail the next generation,’ said SEIU President Mary Kay Henry. ‘Restoring
the rights of graduate workers is a critical step in ensuring that those on the
front-lines of teaching and researching at colleges and universities have a
voice in improving higher education for all of us.’

“The
NLRB has shifted back and forth over the past several decades on issues
regarding who, among all the people on a university campus, is a worker and
thus has the right to organize a union. In its decision in 2000 regarding New
York University (NYU) teaching and research assistants, the NLRB decided that
working as a TA or RA looked like many other ‘common law’ employment
relationships. Therefore, they should have the right to form a union and to
bargain collectively, the NLRB said.

“But
four years later, looking at Brown University, the Republican-leaning majority
argued that the NLRA was intended to cover ‘economic,’ not ‘educational,’
activities, and overturned the NYU decision. (The administration there then
voluntarily agreed to recognize the union). In its rejoinder to the authors of
the Brown decision, the current NLRB majority, reviewing the evidence from
Columbia, said that treating teaching and research assistants as workers best
fulfilled the intentions of the NLRA. Also, the NLRB wrote, just because work
could be educationally useful did not mean it was not, as well, a job.

“The
Columbia decision could be important in several ways beyond the obvious
potential for graduate student organizing. Here’s how:

It could increase the rights and
rewards of an important group of often underpaid workers in a growing
sector with significant economic importance. Higher education depends
increasingly on a vast infrastructure of contingent employees. In many
cases, the declining standards for those lower ranks erode standards for
tenured faculty. Together with student unions, these potentially
newly-organized forces could pressure schools toward a more democratic
American education.

Although the Columbia decision
affects only teaching and research assistants directly, a potential uptick
in organizing could inspire other groups to organize and encourage more
unions to join in the already thriving competition for campus workers,
whatever their jobs. The NLRB ruling may spill over in spirit as well,
with union membership having a new prestige among more highly-educated,
white-collar workers, including those working in research centers.

“Organizing
graduate student workers in both public and private universities has never been
easy. But after Tuesday’s NLRB ruling, it’s more possible than ever before.”

1 comment:

3-1 Columbia Decision Overrules Brown UniversityWashington, D.C. — The National Labor Relations Board issued a 3-1 decision in Columbia University that student assistants working at private colleges and universities are statutory employees covered by the National Labor Relations Act. The Graduate Workers of Columbia-GWC, UAW filed an election petition seeking to represent both graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants, along with graduate and departmental research assistants at the university in December 2014. The majority reversed Brown University (342 NLRB 483) saying it “deprived an entire category of workers of the protections of the Act without a convincing justification.”

For 45 years, the National Labor Relations Board has exercised jurisdiction over private, nonprofit universities such as Columbia. In that time, the Board has had frequent cause to apply the Act to faculty in the university setting, which has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

Federal courts have made clear that the authority to define the term “employee” rests primarily with the Board absent an exception enumerated within the National Labor Relations Act. The Act contains no clear language prohibiting student assistants from its coverage. The majority found no compelling reason to exclude student assistants from the protections of the Act.

Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce was joined by Members Kent Y. Hirozawa and Lauren McFerran in the majority opinion. Member Philip A. Miscimarra dissented in the case.

The decision reverses the case dismissal by the Regional Director and remands the case to the Agency’s Region 2 Office in Manhattan for further action.

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